European Union Communication Strategies

Abstract

The  challenges  that  the  European  Union  has  to  face  today, especially the question of the democratic and information deficit, the consequences of the enlargement of the Union (with twelve S-E European states, in 2004, and 2007 respectively), the accelerated development and ever growing importance of media, to name but a few, generated serious debates  that  called  attention  to  a  less  known  topic:  communication strategies. The increasing interest of the European Union‘s institutions in communication is proved by a series of actions put into practice primarily by the Commission. These actions focus on communication as a means of  ̳closing the gap‘ between the citizens and the EU, trying hard to regain the citizens‘ trust and interest in its politics. The present paper aims at analyzing the evolution of the different tools of communication used by the EU with a view to point out that the complex issues the European institutions have to cope with caused them to reconsider and adjust the communication strategies up to the point of transforming it into a policy in itself together with other already consecrated policies of the EU.